


Our Wicked Home

by PermianExtinction



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Bodyguarding Anidala Style, Brendol is a pretty okay dad, Brief mentions of past trauma, Discussions of War Crimes, Fluff and Angst, Jedi Ben Solo, Light Side Kylux, M/M, Senator Hux, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-22 10:28:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7432879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PermianExtinction/pseuds/PermianExtinction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twenty years after his father defected with him from the First Order, Senator Armitage Hux returns to the abandoned Arkanis Academy with his Jedi bodyguard Ben Solo in the service of bringing his family's evil deeds to light. But it's difficult to keep a clear, objective head when a place that should be sinister and forbidding awakens nostalgic memories of his childhood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Wicked Home

**Author's Note:**

> Once upon a time, I asked a friend if we could do an RP together of an AU that I was planning. Some good things happened. Now, even though it's a day late, this fic is a birthday gift to @mint-and-parsley on tumblr. Most of this story is a retooling of that first RP, with some added scenes. Think of it as a Director's Cut.

“We’re entering the aerial minefield,” said Hux, settling forward into his chair. The endless, formless sheets of tempest-swept water drops flowed in a streak past the curvature of the windscreen. Only the sensors told him of his position, or that his Senatorial transport vessel was swooping through a maze of what had up until recently been active sensors and hovering metal beads stuffed with jammers that could overload far tougher ships than his.

This was Arkanis, the planet of rainstorms and echoes, and just a klick or so from where the ship flew was the austere Academy, where the now-vanquished Galactic Empire had trained many of its officers. Hux’s birthplace.

“Already? You might have said something!” The broad-shouldered, black-locked Jedi scrambled from where he was lounging and came up to the pilot’s chair, slipping his arms round Hux to grip the same steering sticks as Hux was holding. “Let’s ease up. Take it slow…”

Hux looked up; Ben Solo was all seriousness above him, and nose. His gaze was set ahead while his fingers shifted, brushing against Hux’s as he manipulated the controls.

Withdrawing his white-gloved hands primly into his lap, Hux took a deep breath. He hadn’t been nervous before – was Ben’s worry rubbing off on him? “ _All_ of the proximity mines have been defused.”

“You can’t be too cautious,” Ben murmured, as he gently angled the ship down. “You know the Empire. They were both cunning and fastidious.”

Hux _did_ know the Empire, better than Ben. “Do you think my father would have sent me to be blown up by his own three-decade-old death trap?”

Startled guilt crossed Ben’s features, and he let go of the controls, which Hux quickly seized as Ben stepped back. “No, I… suppose not,” he admitted as he lowered himself into the copilot’s chair. “Your safety is my concern, Senator.”

Hux could not fault Ben for his diligence. The prodigal son of Rebellion heroes Leia Organa and Han Solo, apprentice and nephew of Luke Skywalker, felt like overkill as a bodyguard in any situation. Some of Hux’s fellow politicians found complaints in the frequency with which their Arkanisian colleague was granted such high measures of protection.

But the reasons that Senator Armitage Hux needed a Jedi by his side were common knowledge. It had made for quite the story: an infamous ex-Imperial officer, an indoctrinator of children (and, many sources said, facilitator of inhumane experiments on them), defecting from the shadows of the First Order with his fourteen-year-old son. In exchange for amnesty, Brendol Hux had revealed secrets of the Order, one after another, to the New Republic, with one of the chief mediators being Ben's mother, Princess Leia Organa.

Reassuringly, taking some slight pity on Ben, Hux said, “Cunning and fastidious is an accurate assessment of my father, and I believe he would find it flattering as well.”

Far ahead, the faint gray outlines of buildings appeared, and Hux curved their transport toward it. He’d need to check the map to ascertain the exact location, but he knew there was a broad field where larger ships, those bulked up by integrated hyperdrive engines, could land.

Arkanis's population was small, insular, divided starkly into the very rich and the very poor. Despite its diminished status, its current senator had made quite a name for himself with his radical policies and staunch opposition to internal corruption. Made enemies, too. But what brought the most risk were his attacks on the First Order and its supporters. Attempts were made to dismiss him as a demagogue, but Hux spoke from a position of authority that even someone like Leia Organa could not. He and his father were the famous traitors. They knew what the Order was; Brendol had designed it and Armitage had lived it.

And then they’d fled. It was generally known that Brendol Hux had committed an act of great treason even before his defection, which had turned the rest of High Command against him. The act itself was not something he often felt inclined to share, but the gist of the “why” was made clear by one simple fact: He was ferociously protective of his son.

No sound or movement but the rain and the hum of the engines as Hux settled the ship on the landing field. The mines, much that they had stood guard over the perimeter of the Imperial Academy, had indeed all been shut off.

“Ben, fetch the luggage, would you?” Hux said, powering down the engine and dropping the exit ramp. The clatter of falling water sharpened, no longer a muffled thrumming on the exterior of the ship. “Have you got your own plasma umbrella?”

There was rummaging about in the back as Ben heaved the collection of suitcases into his arms. Normally a droid’s work, but Hux thought it prudent to save money and simply use the manpower available to him.

“I’ve got a cloak,” Ben told him. “It’ll repel most of the water. Does it always rain like this here?”

“Often,” said Hux. Approaching the door, he picked up the round emitter disc. “Well, are we ready?”

“Ready,” Ben responded, popping the handle out on a rolling suitcase and dragging it down the ramp. Hux followed him, noting the tiny wince as the chilly, heavy rain began to batter the top of Ben’s head. He turned on the half-domed translucent shield, but it was only large enough to keep him dry.

Pointing ahead, raising his voice over the torrent, Hux said, “The old Academy campus is just a minute’s walk away.”

The already sodden Jedi huffed and bowed his head as he fell into step beside Hux, stooped just a bit by the weight of the luggage. “That’s reassuring. I might drown standing up if we had to be out here too long.”

Hux didn’t quip back, preoccupied by the sight of pale green shoots poking through the cracks in the pavement.

Their path took them up a sloping hill, where the view opened into more than just a wall of rain. “Is that an ocean over there?” Ben asked, squinting.

“It is.” Hux’s gaze, less obstructed due to his umbrella, followed Ben’s, eyeing the cliffs and the beach below them. It wasn’t visible, but there was a tall tower sitting in the bay, the place known as Area Null. But he wasn’t ready to think about that yet. “I wonder if that old vithca is still lurking in the shallows.”

Beside him, Ben grunted unappreciatively. “Tentacle monsters. Wonderful. Seems like a pleasant place to spend your early childhood.”

Oddly, Hux felt the need to defend the creature’s presence. “It wasn’t so bad. The cadets called him Leggy Gerge and threw lumps of meat at him sometimes.”

Which drew a snicker from Ben. “Leggy… are you serious?”

The ground where they were walking had lost its pavement, possibly in a mudslide. Hux’s boots squelched in the softened dirt. “I suppose it’s wrong of me to think upon such things with fondness,” he admitted.

“Well, it doesn’t sound like this Leggy Gerge was too much of a danger, if you routinely threw things at him and… and named him.”

Squelch. Squelch. And then back to the pavement, where it was a firmer _clap, clap, clap_ , even through the puddles. “Oh, no,” said Hux, his mind’s eye filling with the sight of bloodied water and thrashing green limbs that had once seemed to be a harmless mat of seaweed. “He was deadly.” He could hear Ben still squelching behind him. “But it gave the cadets a sense of power, to treat him with irreverence.”

He wondered if the Jedi had caught a whiff some of those images, because Ben said quickly, “Okay, yeah, that’s more terrifying than some of the live creatures my father tried to transport in his ship. And I’ve had incidents with rathtars.”

Something Hux remembered hearing distinguishing one genus of tentacle monster from another, which he repeated to Ben now, was, “Sarlaccs are vithca who couldn’t swim, and rathtars are vithca who couldn’t learn to be patient.” He shrugged. “Odd connection to have. Both our fathers were too reckless with tentacled beasts.”

Ben peeked at Hux from over multiple pieces of luggage and smiled. “When you put it like that, it sounds scandalous.”

“Good _grief,_ Ben,” Hux snapped reproachfully, and Ben subsided, but not without a tiny snicker. “And I was just about to offer you my umbrella.”

“I don’t want to ram the luggage into your ankles and scuff your boots.” A typical answer; the Jedi seemed to think that bodyguarding meant accommodating to every little thing Hux could possibly need. Hux had come to simply accept this, though it wasn’t his intention to treat Ben like a servant.

They passed by one of the now defunct security gates; Ben eyed it cautiously as if it might jump to life. “This place gives me the creeps,” he murmured. Beyond the gate lay an empty courtyard, over which the tall barracks buildings loomed. “I already don’t like it here. You don’t sense anything?”

Hux had his eyes closed, and he was inhaling the cool scent of rain on the pavement. His boots were already washed clean of the mud they had picked up. “No. I don’t.” Then, his head seemed to clear and he turned to Ben. “If there’s a threat, though…” he added seriously.

“This place feels haunted. I don’t sense anything immediate, just… a lot of troubled history. Years of stress and violence. Too many deaths for a school.”

The nostalgic moment Hux was caught up in drained away. “Yes, I suppose there was a lot of death. Are you sure you’re all right for… the facility?”

“I can handle it, it’s just unsettling at first.” But Ben halted in his tracks, and stared up at a window.

“You see something?” Hux thought, _we can’t rule out the possibility of danger. We’re here to find what the Empire went to great lengths to hide._

“No,” Ben mumbled. “Just another of those feelings.”

Hux pursed his lips. “Then let’s get indoors.” He made for one of the side entrances; his memory of the layout of this place still lingered despite it being so long ago, and him being so young. As he removed the keychip from his breast pocket, he heard Ben dragging the suitcases towards him, and spotted him veering around a puddle. Thirty years ago, Hux thought, the courtyard would have been so flat and level as the cadets marched in their drills. No puddles would have formed, no part of the ground would have been sunken even a tiny bit.

“Hey,” said Ben. “Be glad I’m not a Kiffir. The Force-sensitives among them could sense memories by touch.”

The lock was powered off, but Hux had a tiny generator with him that could spark up a bit of electricity, just enough for the door to open when it recognized the key. “We will stay here for a few days, while I oversee the investigations. I… hope it doesn’t become a problem for you.”

“I’m no stranger to ghosts, you know.” Ben’s lips curved with a smirk and he chuckled to himself. “But if anything frightens you in the night…”

Hux arched an eyebrow.

“You’re a skeptic, though, so you’ll probably pass it off as the wind, or passing ship lights, or your imagination.”

“It most likely _would_ be one of those things,” Hux insisted, and entered the building as the door split and parted with a soft hiss. “But if a ghost truly is trying to communicate, let me know. I am sure we could benefit from hearing its account.” The door sealed shut; the clamoring rain was silenced. Everything softened; when Hux spoke again, his voice seemed too loud, too harsh. “You’re—” He cleared his throat. “You’re drenched. That cloak hardly did anything.”

Ben shrugged; the water-logged cloak slapped against his thighs. “Just let me know when I can put your luggage down. My arms have gone numb.”

Shutting off the plasma umbrella, Hux reflected on how the ceilings within the barracks no longer seemed cavernously tall. “Surely your Jedi training had you performing far more arduous tasks.”

“I have no idea what you packed,” said Ben, casting his eyes around the dim corridors. “But it weighs far more than anything this size should.

“It’s actually the remains of the old protocol droid who worked here. In the course of the investigation, we will attempt to reassemble her.”

“Attempt? Is she missing parts?”

“Yes.” Hux kept his tone even, delivering facts. “She was severely damaged in the Battle of Jakku.” She had been in the part of their ship that had lost shields…

“She must have meant a lot to you if you kept her.”

Hux nodded tersely. “She took care of me when I was a toddler.” In fact, he might have walked down this very hall with his tiny two-year-old fingers wrapped around one of her thin black digits.

“I understand,” Ben told him. “I was the same. Mother was so busy trying to rebuild the government and Father… Anyway, you’ve met Artoo and Threepio.”

A note of curiosity struck Hux. “Did you ever pick up the habit of speaking Binary? DeeDee frowned on it, but there were a lot of little helper droids about the place.” He wet his lips and tentatively whistled; with practice, a human could more or less imitate the nuances of droid language, though most preferred to address droids in Basic. [Communication form: Binary. Capable?]

Ben whistled back, and his accent sounded even cleaner than Hux’s. [Affirmative, capable.] “But I also learned some less practical things from Artoo.” [Stick _that_ in your dataport and process it!]

A startled bark of laughter emerged from Hux’s throat. “DeeDee would never have permitted such vulgarities! If she heard you, she’d wash your mouth out with machine oil.”

He caught sight of a pleased grin on Ben’s face. Ben always smiled like that, like he’d won a prize, when he managed to make Hux laugh.

Hux slowed at a turbolift, but did not stop; it would not be functional. Instead, he opened a manual door to a flight of stairs. “Come on down,” he said, his thoughts returning to the task at hand. “We’ll be turning the power on one block at a time.”

He was halfway down the darkened stairs when he saw the suitcases floating past him in the center of the spiral. “I’ve seen this film before…” Ben’s voice resonated from above.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Creepy dark staircases… they’re a bad omen in holofilms.” Then, the Jedi was trotting past him, reaching the foot of the stairs before Hux did. “You expect to fall, or see something staring at us from the top, or… I don’t know.” He gathered the luggage back up and hefted it in his arms.

“You’re really spooked, aren’t you?” Still, part of Hux didn’t want to ignore Ben’s intuition, though he was making light of it. And then there was part of him that didn’t want to believe this place would be hostile to them… to him.

“The Force isn’t balanced here. I can feel so much but…” Ben cut off and his hand reflexively reached for his lightsaber as the thick doors jolted open.

Hux tucked his door-unlocking instruments under his arm and moved to touch Ben’s wrist. “Steady on, there.”

“Just trying to keep you safe.”

When Ben seemed slightly calmer, Hux withdrew his fingers and clasped them into a fist behind his back. “Very well. But it won’t do for you to be jumping at shadows.”

“I’m not that paranoid.” Even so, Ben still peered about restlessly as Hux brought the block online. It was only a section of the Academy that was stirring from slumber, like the bleary cracking open of an eyelid, but it was more activity than it had seen in thirty years. They took the now-functional turbolift back up, with Ben still floating the suitcases around them like a ring of shields.

“Now that there’s power,” Hux said, breaking the uneasy silence, “we’ll be able to settle into our living space.”

“Finally.” Ben was squeezing a bit of water from his sleeves; he still dripped wherever he walked. “I’m beginning to regret not taking that umbrella.” He chewed his lip. “Is it going to be one room, or…?”

“It’s actually an entire house.” He breathed in, breathed out. “The Commandant’s building.” Surely his voice had come out steady.

Thankfully, Ben’s response was prompt and easy. “And I was expecting a couple of twin-sized dorm bunks with starchy military sheets.”

“If you’d like to stay in one of those bunks, feel free to.” Though it was unlikely Ben would take him up on that offer. “Though… in this block… they’d be a little undersized.”

To Hux’s dismay, Ben shuddered. “Young cadets.”

“Yes, Ben,” Hux snapped, though he hadn’t meant for it to be as harsh as it sounded. “This is an academy. There were young people.”

“Something about child-sized furniture unsettles me. Where are we sleeping, then?”

It wasn’t his fault, Hux thought. Ben was right to find this place disturbing. It was Hux who was wrong, always wrong, always struggling to clear the twisted lenses of indoctrination from his eyes. But, he considered miserably, was it really fair that he had to scrub his childhood memories of any happiness, so that he would be able to acknowledge the evil his family had participated in? He _had_ been happy here on Arkanis. Not every day, not in every way, but enough for it to mean something.

He’d dedicated his life to bringing down the First Order. He did dislike them, perhaps more than was rational. But it had been easy to dislike being in the First Order because at the time it had meant having less, moving from place to place, high expectations placed on him with no possible way to fulfill them. It had meant being taken away from all this, from his home. Back then, he’d focused his indignation on the perceived enemy, the New Republic. He knew better now.

“There are two bedrooms in our building,” he muttered through his rolling, pitching thoughts. “And yes, the sheets are starchy there too.”

“As your bodyguard, I suppose I’ll be sleeping in the same room as you?”

Murkily, Hux withdrew himself from his contemplations. “You usually stay in an adjoining room when we’re on Hosnian Prime. Why the change?”

“Because I don’t like this place, simple as that. Something isn’t right here. And Hosnian Prime is much more secure.”

Hux was just able to keep himself from grinding his teeth together. “… Very well.” He didn’t feel like discussing it any further.

On the third floor of the barracks, an exit led to a covered glass bridge from which an angular building perched atop the complex could be spotted. It was like the bridge of a Star Destroyer, jutting up, overlooking all. He heard Ben murmur, “Imposing…” under his breath. Hux sunk deeper into the hollow ache that burdened his chest. He didn’t find it imposing. _That’s_ _my_ _house_ , he wanted to say indignantly.

“Try not to murder the security eye,” he said, pointing to the small camera on a stalk as it swiveled down to look at them.

“Why would I do that? It’s just a droid.” Ben blinked at it, attempting an awkwardly placating smile.

“You’ve just been so anxious.” Hux halted before the camera. “Armitage Hux,” he stated crisply.

Even though it was a simple thing, the droid managed to convey brief confusion. Then it dipped its scanning gaze up and down the senator and its light flashed green. _It remembers me_ , Hux thought morosely. _But I’m much bigger than before._

Riding up the second turbolift, the one that passed through all the levels of central administrative management, Hux steeled himself. He could do that, he thought. He had learned control. Had it beaten into him by years of the most rigorous military training. Put it to use, even if it was a repugnant memory now.

When the doors opened at last, Hux took one step and immediately heard a tiny crunch. Ben, predictably, tensed up, peering around his stack of luggage. Moving his foot aside, Hux saw a little toy stormtrooper, a sergeant, its blaster now snapped in half. “Oh,” he said.

_… falling from his hand, just another quiet evening of play suddenly gone Wrong, a swimmy vision of his mother with bared teeth and tightening eyes: “We have to find your father. Now.” And words that had been so colossal he hadn’t understood them. “The Emperor is dead.”_

The toy jiggled on the floor like it was shaking itself awake, startling Hux badly, until it rose up and Ben spoke. “… that’s not ominous at all.”

Hux snatched the little action figure out of midair, breaking Ben’s Force hold on it. He turned it over in his palm. “No. It’s not ominous. Just a bit of clutter.” Then, he tossed it away into the corner. The motion had meant to be dismissive, but he put more strength into it than necessary; it struck a table and skittered away.

“Well, you didn’t have to throw him…”

“It.” An immediate, automatic response. Skin prickling, Hux tried to recover, walking into the familiar living room and brushing non-existent dust off the smooth-textured sofa. “Let’s just get unpacked.”

Cautiously, Ben did as Hux suggested, thumping the suitcases down on the floor. But he came up to Hux and rested a hand on the man’s back. Hux could feel the heat of Ben’s palm through the layers of tunics. “You’re uneasy,” the Jedi murmured.

“ _You_ were the one talking about horror holos and ominous feelings.” Stepping away from the offered comfort, Hux grabbed the two smaller cases and headed for the other side of the room. “I’ll show you where we’ll be staying.”

Through a door lay a flight of stairs that bent at a right angle halfway up; beside them were windows providing a view of the sea. Hux heard Ben stop behind him, taking in the sight.

Pensively, Hux said – perhaps he hadn’t meant to say it aloud – “If I was sent to my room for misbehaving, I’d usually stop on the steps and stare out at the waves and the rain until I calmed down.”

“I wish I’d had a view like that. Did you ever watch storms from this landing?” Ben’s eyes were shut, as if he was imagining it – a tiny child version of the senator wrapped in a blanket and staring out at turbulent skies.

“Many times; I imagined them as space battles.”

Ben lingered, but Hux moved on, bringing the suitcases to the top of the stairs and opening the door to his parents’ room. There was a king-sized bed against the far wall; the sheets were crumpled, but a deactivated service droid slumped over the side, as if it had been in the middle of trying to fix this when it lost power. There was also a desk, a tall cabinet, a few dead potted trees, and a mat in the corner by the window.

Coming in behind him and approaching the droid, Ben said, low and sympathetic, “Poor thing…”

“It must have come here weeks after the evacuation. Normally DeeDee took care of these things.” Hux pictured the little droid, and its fellows, venturing further and further from the programmed routes as it became clear that no one else was bothering with upkeep.

“Are there charging stations around here?”

Hux pointed. “Beside the bureau. You’re going to wake it up?”

Ben was already gathering the droid in his arms and lugging it to the outlet on the wall. “Why not?”

“It won’t have anything to do. Besides make the bed.”

Ben sat and crossed his legs, staring earnestly at the sleeping droid. “I wouldn’t mind the company. I don’t like to be alone.”

“Alone how? Just because I’ll be on the Net for a while doesn’t mean I’m not still _here_.”

“I know, but…” Ben sighed, words failing him.

Hux unpacked his travel bag methodically, laying neatly folded clothes out on the bed until he uncovered his datapad. Ben finally got up from staring at the droid and found a closet, shedding his wet robe to hang it up.

“Oh, you’re kidding me. There an actual place to put wet clothes?”

Hux was busy logging onto his datapad, his eyes set on his screen. “Why wouldn’t there be?”

“I was hoping the constant rain was an exaggeration.” When Hux looked up, Ben was turning, spreading his hands in mild amazement. “But no, you have some sort of little drip-catching system.”

“It’s rarer to see the sun than to see clouds,” Hux told him. “Though it’s mostly just overcast without rain.” He put the pad aside for a moment. “Father said the sun came out when I was born. But there’s a chance he’s lying. He likes to exaggerate.”

There was a snicker, which meant Ben had thought of something he deemed to be exceptionally clever. “Wouldn’t surprise me,” he said, “if your hair shot sunbeams through the clouds.”

Sometimes Ben… said things like that. Playful comments that for some reason felt more personal, and thus more embarrassing. Hux hid his face. “Very poetic of you,” he grunted.

He felt a tiny puff of breath against the back of his neck as Ben peered over his shoulder at the holoscreen emitted by the datapad. Then it was gone, and Ben was heading out the door. “Can I make tea? Is there a kettle?”

Calling down the stairs, Hux said, “There should be, and the water’s filterable. Check the ring around the tap; if it’s still green, it’s safe to drink.”

Apparently it was, because he heard Ben turn the water on and begin to wash out the kettle. But his attention was drawn to a private communique from General Organa; Hux’s forehead knit with concentration as he listened. It must have been audible downstairs, because Ben was thumping back up to the room, summoned by the sound of his mother’s voice.

He halted when he saw Hux’s steely yet faraway gaze. “Something the matter?”

“Yes. The intelligence that the Resistance has been gathering… it’s true. The First Order is constructing some kind of large planetary base. Their fleet is bigger than we estimated, too…” He dragged his nails over the surface of his palm.

“They’re getting ready to go to war,” Ben said.

Suddenly, Hux’s voice was raised harshly in frustration. “And the Senate continues to deny any possibility of a threat! Why do they refuse to listen? Do they _want_ war?”

A hand fell on his knee; Ben sat beside him, his brow furrowed. “I know the feeling,” he said at last. “They don’t exactly trust the ravings of a mad Jedi, either.”

For a moment, Hux’s stinging anger took a backseat as an unusual warmth arose in his chest. Ben’s thumb was slowly moving back and forth, tracing over Hux’s kneecap. “I… wonder if we should put this mission on hold. Maybe I could go back to the capital. Convince them with this new evidence…”

Ben spoke quietly, as if this was a secret between them, as if there was anyone around to hear. “Admirable, but we don’t have the support to do that now. Maybe we’ll find something here, or… when we head out to the tower…”

The reminder of the ultimate target of their investigations brought Hux out of his daze. He couldn’t be weak now, couldn’t trap himself in his overeager emotions. When they crossed the bridge to Area Null, Ben would need him. The man might deny it over and over, but just the skeleton of the school put him ill at ease. And the worst things hadn’t gone on in the school.

“I… I trust your mother to keep an eye on things,” Hux eventually said.

Nodding, Ben gave Hux’s knee a light squeeze. “I do too. Now, how about tea?”

Hux straightened his back, thought of what must be done, of what patience could provide. “Yes. Right. Tea.”

Ben stood. “Alright. Where have you stashed it?”

Rolling his eyes, Hux leaned to grab his pack. “Well, _normally_ I don’t share intel about my _secret tea stash_.” He opened the bag and showed the interior to Ben; there was a tin at the bottom. “But I’ll clue you in. I keep it in my bag, with the rest of my belongings.”

The Jedi bowed, chuckling. “As you bodyguard, I’m sworn to secrecy.”

As Ben pulled the tin out, Hux added in a less sardonic tone, “It’s very strong, by the way. No need to waste the leaves; about a pinch will do.”

Once Hux was alone in the room, with Ben comfortably rattling around in the kitchen, the senator felt his momentary calm dwindling. He stood up, paced about the room. By now it should be mid-morning in the province of Elam on Hosnian Prime. He picked up his datapad, hand hovering over the commlink. What would he _say_ , though, if he called?

Before he could make up his mind, Ben had returned with two mugs, trails of steam snaking above them; Hux dropped the datapad and stiffened before reaching out. “That was fast.”

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” Ben said gently, passing Hux his tea.

Hux warmed his hands around the base of the mug, staring into the shivering surface of the dark liquid. A fragrant and familiar smell was rising from it – not familiar like the layout of a childhood home, but more common and recent. More grounding.

He heard Ben shifting closer. “Are you cold?”

His mouth had already closed over the rim of the mug; Hux glanced up, took a sip, and then shook his head. “I’m already acclimatizing. I just can appreciate the warmth… You’re the one who let yourself get soaked, though. Are _you_ cold?”

“No,” Ben said, perhaps a bit proudly. “I produce a lot of heat.” He tugged at his damp shirt, a motion which drew Hux’s eyes to the way the fabric seemed thinner, clinging more easily to Ben’s chest. Well, it wasn’t inappropriate to admire the man’s physique…

Hux averted his gaze; this wasn’t the time. “I need to make a call. A more private one, if that’s all right. You can stay in here and talk to that droid when it wakes up. I’ll be in the living room.”

“I’ll… meditate,” Ben suggested, clearly trying to be amenable to the situation. He cast about and spotted the mat in the corner. “Funny, that spot looks perfect for it.”

“Does it?” Hux shrugged, as if the thought would never have occurred to him.

Once he was downstairs, with both doors in between them shut tight, he settled on the couch and turned on the commlink, waiting.

“ _Made it there in one piece, did you?_ ”

Hux smiled and sipped his tea. “Naturally. Unless you were lying about the thoroughness of the deactivation effort. In which case… luckily.”

His father settled back in his chair, eyes crinkling with fond amusement. “ _I could have left a few of them sparking a bit. Just to keep you on your toes._ ”

“Oh, you could have done. But Ben would have socked you in the jaw the next time he saw you.”

Even with the scan lines running through the meter-high hologram, the resolution distorted by the interfering static of deep space, Hux caught a sparkle of mischief in his father’s eyes. “ _Ben Solo, yes… Your Jedi bodyguard. He’s grown very fond of you over the years._ ”

Hux shrugged. “I don’t know about _grown_ fond. He wasn’t much different when we first met.”

“ _Is that right? Ah, you are correct, I remember now. The little fellow hung about like you were quite the spectacle._ ”

“I _was_ quite the spectacle,” the senator insisted and Brendol Hux laughed out loud, in rueful agreement.

Anyone who saw Brendol and Armitage talking would have assumed they had always been close. These days, the ex-commandant seemed agreeable, almost kindly. He had grown a beard, put on weight, loosened his speech into a gentle drawl. There was genuine warmth in his smile when he spoke to, or of, his son.

But even when he had been in charge of the ruthless brainwashing of Imperial Academy cadets, even when he had been scheming the stormtrooper program that to this day the First Order was reaping the benefits of, he had been _agreeable_. Even at his strictest, which could be terrifyingly strict indeed, his confident presence could convince you that nothing he did was too extreme. You could catch him with blood on his hands and he’d own the situation so utterly that you might think you had been impolite in intruding on his work.

Though Armitage Hux supposed that someone who hadn’t grown up with Empire standards of morality might have seen his father for what he was – a madman. Armitage himself had seen that true nature once, but only once, and never again.

There _had_ been literal blood on Brendol’s hands, and splattering the lenses of his spectacles, when he’d knelt before his son and said, “Well, Armie. I’m afraid I’ve committed high treason.” Like that was just something you _did_ , a whim that might come over you.

Armitage had shook violently, not sure if it was out of fear or gratitude. Part of him had been angry at himself for telling his father about what had happened in the first place. And the deepest dread he had carried had been that his father would be disgusted. Would think of him as a weak, unworthy thing. But his father had knelt before him, as if in supplication. As if the one to blame was himself, not his son.

Nevertheless, Armitage had blamed himself. It had felt like the fall of the Empire all over again, being uprooted and dragged away from what he’d come to know. And when he found out they’d have to seek protection from the New Republic, and strike traitorous deals with the Resistance, he had sunken into the bitterest despair.

Twenty galactic standard years ago, when he'd disembarked from their pirated starship a jittery, hate-filled adolescent, Armitage Hux had wondered what point there was in living. Maybe because it would have been humiliating for his father to sacrifice everything over a son who had given up on himself.

And it hadn’t felt like much at the time, and it was only a tiny dent into the amount of work Hux would have to do to recover, but there had been some solace in meeting someone who thought he was worth paying attention to. Little Ben, clinging to his mother’s legs or hovering around his caretaker droids and that terrifying wall of brown fur, Chewbacca. But sometimes, like a kite flying both tethered and free, he would strike out from under these shadows and find something new to explore. And when he’d seen the Huxes, with their strange clothes and their stiff mannerisms and their flaming red hair, he’d flown out like a gale was under his wings.

At first, Armitage hadn’t liked it. He felt like he was being gawked at, a clownish oddity serving only as entertainment. But Ben had given him calm, self-assured kindness without asking for anything in return. Or sometimes he wanted company, someone to talk with his troubles about, but something like that wasn’t too costly for Hux. In fact, it gave him things – knowledge. The knowledge that people could share weakness with one another, and build each other back up instead of abusing the advantage.

So then, awkwardly, fearfully, he had tried this new idea on his father, who was the one constant in all his life. Instead of just listening and respecting, Armitage had tried offering bits of himself. Even disagreeing, if it came to that. Sitting on the same side of a room as him, instead of across him like he was being interviewed. It helped that they shared a culture no one around them understood: the culture of the First Order. They’d relied on one another to make the transition easier.

“The house is the same as it always was,” Hux said. “Except it couldn’t be more different.”

“ _I imagine so_ ,” his father responded. The mournfulness tinting his tone was enough for Hux to know where the man’s mind was wandering.

“I’m worried,” admitted Hux after a pause, “that the First Order is plotting to make a move soon. I feel like I’ve exiled myself here at the worst possible time.”

Brendol seemed as if he had been anticipating this uncertainty. “ _On the contrary, it is exactly the proper time. What this investigation will bring to light will undoubtedly be ugly. But it will be necessary in convincing the people of the Republic to act. You are aware that the grimmest atrocities will escape outrage if there is not publicity behind them._ ”

The grimmest atrocities. Not just the cruelty of the military academies that the Empire set up. Brendol Hux was referring to the activities that went on in Area Null, shrouded in rain and mist.

Project Harvester. The experimentation on Force-sensitive children – extracting, transplanting, modifying their abilities. Draining them of midichlorians to try to isolate the mechanism by which powers to manipulate universal laws were granted to certain individuals. It had been the Empire’s way of controlling the Force-sensitive population, and it had been a scientific endeavor that Hux’s parents had thrown themselves into… enthusiastically.

It was one of the other reasons Ben had come along; paradoxically, it was one of the reasons why Hux hadn’t wanted Ben to come along. The walls of that place must be painted with psychic screams from the tormented, the confused, the dying. All so young.

Hux nodded shortly. “I just wonder if I can put together a coherent narrative in time. The story of the Project. Something that would open people’s eyes. It could take years… I have journalists and scholars clamoring to join on but I don’t know if I can bear having them here.” He scraped his fingers through his hair roughly, elbows propped on his knees. “Ben’s right. This place is wicked. But it’s _ours,_ our home.” That interplay of ownership and belonging, both equally fierce, overrode any sense of ethics.

“ _Our wicked home_.” His father heaved a bittersweet sigh. “ _But I won’t have you enduring it alone. This isn’t your sin, it’s mine. That’s why I’ll be joining you in a few days._ ”

“What?” Hux exclaimed, straightening up. “But… the agreement was that you’d only be protected by the Republic in the Core Worlds! The Order could—!”

“ _Do you think they frighten me?_ ” The affability in Brendol’s expression turned cold-blooded for a second, and Hux remembered – _really_ remembered – who was behind the heinous crimes he was here to uncover. “ _I know they’re still out there. High Command can’t have changed much. I know better than you what they’re capable of and I’d like to see them try to take me on._ ”

Hux gave in. “I suppose there’s no stopping you.”

“ _Not this time_ ,” his father agreed.

From upstairs, there came the thudding of footsteps, and Hux glanced up. “I thought Jedi could meditate for longer than that…”

Ben’s voice came wafting down. “Hux, it’s charged!”

Briefly confused, Hux glanced to his father as if the man might have answers. “Which—oh. The service droid. There was a C2 droid up in your and M—in your bedroom,” he explained. “It seemed to have lost power in the middle of fixing the bed. Ben wants to make friends with it.”

“ _Ah, a C2. If it made it all the way here, it must have run out of things to do elsewhere. Expect the campus to be very clean and orderly._ ” Brendol waved a hand idly. “ _Go take care of things, and don’t worry about me._ ”

“Do take care, Father,” Hux murmured, but he shut the holocomm off as Ben came down the stairs with the droid cradled in his arms like an oversized metal baby. It whistled bemusedly; Hux caught what it was saying. [Identify? Identify?]

“You’re confusing it,” Hux said. “Put it on the floor.”

Setting the droid gently down beside the sofa, Ben knelt. [Identify?] the C2 beeped querulously.

“I’m Ben,” Ben told it, and then he whistled something in Binary that made the little droid wheel backwards in horror, piping out a string of urgent words. Hux caught one of them: [escaped?]

“What did you tell it?” Hux asked.

“That I was a Jedi…” Concerned, Ben tried to reassure the droid. [Friend. I protect other lifeforms.]

 _You told him you were a Force-sensitive_ , Hux thought. _It thought you were an escaped experiment. You wouldn’t have thought the droids here would know about that. But maybe, when the Academy was abandoned…_ He hastily tried to rectify things, and addressed the droid, alternating between Binary and Basic. [Don’t worry] “I’m the master of this house. The Commandant’s son.”

The C2 purred forwards and peered up at Hux; Ben relaxed and smiled at it, watching.

[Larger than specifications indicate] the droid eventually said dubiously.

Ben stood and put a hand on Hux’s shoulder, almost like he was proudly showing him off. “It’s been many years since your last activation,” he informed the droid. “He’s an adult now.”

The C2 droid chirped a few jumbled notes, spinning between Ben and Hux, then beeping, [Quiet. No… orders… received?]

“All the service droids would have been linked to a central AI, a mainframe,” Hux explained. “But this one’s the only one left.”

“Poor thing is probably confused,” said Ben.

Hux deliberated for a moment and then gestured to Ben. “This man is my bodyguard,” he told the C2, and Ben nodded eagerly, whistling, [Affirmative. Protector.]

It seemed to scan Ben a bit more closely, but then rolled past them both and surveyed the room, querying, [Tasks?].

“We could put it to use,” Hux muttered, following the droid but speaking quietly, so it couldn’t hear. “Perhaps ask it to go and power up the rest of the generators. Though we may have to consider that this droid was Empire-made. We don’t know where its ultimate loyalties lie.”

“I think it would be loyal to Commandant Hux, wouldn’t it? And you’re his son.”

Ben hadn’t lowered his voice enough; the C2 perked up and asked, [Where is the Commandant?]

“Away for now. The Academy is closed.” Hux looked at the commlink. “He will be returning soon.”

Not questioning this, but raising his eyebrows, Ben met Hux’s gaze, and Hux nodded. “We need you to turn on all the block power generators,” Ben finally told the C2. “Bring the Academy online.”

[Affirmative, Master Ben.] Its wheels whirring faintly, the droid trundled out of the room.

“I don’t know why I like droids so much,” Ben commented, “but they’re endearing.”

“We’ll see what you think of DDM-38, if we can get her functional.” Hux raised his eyes to the window, and saw that the sky had darkened, shrouding the barracks and the courtyard far below. “It’s late. I think we might want to have supper.”

They had brought simple instant broths along for the trip, and some dehydrated vegetables, but this always sparked complaints from Ben, who liked his meals fresh and full of variety. Which was why it surprised Hux when Ben said, “I’m going to check on the conservator.”

“Whatever’s in there is thirty years old!” Hux protested, following him into the kitchen.

“Yes, but this is a military academy. There might be some old rations, don’t you imagine?” He tugged open the conservator door— and let out a startled screech of horror.

Hux’s mouth dropped open. Sitting on the top shelf was a black oily bag with a sneer full of teeth as long as fingers. Its giant eyes sagged and ran like fried eggs and there were two pale beads dangling over its grimace on thin stalks.

It would have been the ugliest ichthyoid he’d seen in his life, but he’d seen it before, when it was fresher and, somehow, uglier.

The morning of the day it had all happened. He remembered keenly now: he’d been muzzily brushing his teeth in the fresher when an un-Commandant-like shriek had pierced his ears from downstairs. He’d run down with a mouth full of toothpaste suds to find his mother staggered over the kitchen table, weak-kneed, howling with laughter. And the fish.

“This is too much!” his father had exclaimed, gesticulating wildly at the monstrous creature. “Do you think we’re going to _eat_ this… this abomination?”

“It _is_ edible,” his mother had wheezed, through bouts of mad cackling. “It… oh… you…” And then she lost coherence once more.

It wasn’t common for Commandant Hux to laugh at his own expense; he tended to find others’ misfortune more amusing. But the fish was just too ugly, staring out at them with lifeless stupidity, and then Armitage had come down spewing foam from his mouth in bewilderment like a rabid animal, and it was a while before anyone could breathe. They had to shut the door to the conservator in the end, because every time one of them locked eyes with the fish, they burst out into more hysterics.

In the now, Senator Hux was struggling to suppress hiccups, covering his mouth and shaking. His throat felt bruised with effort. Ben looked between Hux and the fish, unable to comprehend what was happening. And the laughter struggling to free itself from Hux’s chest grew sharper and more strident and it began to _hurt_ , and he slammed his fist on the counter, breathing hard until the feeling passed.

Only in the middle of dinner did Hux finally recover enough to explain. “My mother liked to fish,” he told Ben evenly. “She was very skilled… Sometimes she brought back stranger things than you might have expected.”

“That thing looked like it came out of the depths of an abyssal zone,” Ben said, amazed. “From thousands of fathoms below the surface. How’d she catch it? Surely not with a hook and line.”

Hux shrugged. “I’m no marine biologist.”

“Well, that gives me an idea, anyway. Maybe I could go fishing too. Bring back something more palatable than rehydrated soups.”

It didn’t bother Hux much, to be eating nothing but rehydrated soups. “Be careful. You may be a Jedi, but if you attract the attention of a vithca, you might find yourself missing a limb.”

“I think I could sense Leggy Gerge approaching,” Ben said amusedly.

Briefly, irrationally worried, Hux said, “Try not to kill old Gerge, if he’s still around.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I’m not going to attack something that big.”

Hux turned his attention back to his meal, feeling stupid for being sentimental about a monster who probably had maimed, even devoured, a few cadets back in the day.

After supper, Hux found himself fatigued. “I might consider turning in early tonight. Hyperspace lag. And we’ll need to be well-rested tomorrow.”

“Understandable,” Ben nodded. “I might join you. I doubt I’d get far trying to explore alone.”

“I… don’t want you exploring without me,” Hux said quickly. It wasn’t that he doubted Ben’s ability to look after himself, it was just… “It’s dark out, at any rate.”

“Time for bed, then.” Ben eased out of his chair and chewed his lower lip uncertainly. “We’re sharing the room? And… the bed?”

Hux was busy gathering the dishes; he stiffly nodded.

“Because there was another room upstairs; maybe I could drag a bed from in there…”

“There’s no need,” Hux said quickly. “There’s room for two in the master bedroom already.” He cleared his throat. “There’s no need to go into the other bedroom.”

“… was it yours?” Ben quietly asked.

Hux’s skin prickled faintly. “Yes. But it’s just a distraction.” He dumped the dishes in the washer and wiped off his hands, striding past Ben towards the door. “I’ll be setting my alarm for a slightly earlier time than usual, since we’re going to bed earlier as well.”

“Dress lightly,” Ben called after him. “I get rather warm at night.”

This caused Hux’s cheeks to heat up as he imagined it. And he hadn’t packed light sleepwear; rather, he’d brought heavier clothes in anticipation of Arkanis’s chill. Eventually, he uncovered some loose undergarment meant to be worn in conjunction with a full official outfit; he supposed it could be repurposed. In silence, he washed up in the refresher, with a moment of disorientation when he stepped inside and saw himself in the mirror. It was the first time he’d been able to reach the sink, without standing on a stepstool. He didn’t just reach it now, he towered over it. His mind comprehended, but his body did not; vertigo overtook him briefly.

He passed Ben on the way out; his heart thudded madly as if he’d been caught doing something humiliating, but he said nothing, and the Jedi’s concerned gaze followed him.

Hux lay on one side of his parents’ bed, hands folded on his chest, staring up at the ceiling. Maybe Ben Solo wasn’t the only person who could sense disturbances. But maybe the disturbance was coming from Hux himself.

Ben returned, in the middle of a huge yawn, and turned out the lights. “G’night,” he murmured, taking his spot on the other side of the bed.

 _Just close your eyes_ , Hux told himself. _Shelve all your worries until tomorrow._

It felt like he stayed awake for a long time, no matter how tired he was. Ben’s breathing became even and steady – thankfully he didn’t snore – and he started shifting slightly, just little twitches, likely as dreams transported him from place to place.

Hux must have slept, though, because he woke. Everything was dark, and there was a warm presence draped over him. And he must have dreamed, too, because his blood was afire, his pulse racing. No images were lingering in his mind, but something in him felt like it had shattered. Locks, bulwarks against pain.

He wriggled away from the oppressive warmth and staggered out of bed, feeling feverish. His legs carried him to the door; he palmed it open silently. And then, out the hall, he pressed his forehead against the second door, the one he’d told Ben to keep shut.

He went in.

Of course it was dark, dim, difficult to see. But familiar shapes assaulted him anyway. The cot. The chest full of toys. He knelt; the rug still felt soft, yet coarse, against his skin.

It was a _nice_ room, he thought. A comfortable play space and private hideaway for a child. The walls were covered with posters of simplified, educational starship blueprints. Hours of entertainment, just staring at them and seeing patterns emerge, learning what the more technical terms meant. The pillow on the bed was plump and soft. There were toys lined up on the bureau. From the window, you could watch the other children play – that’s what he’d called their drills and exercises. Playing.

Hux’s forehead pressed against the rug and he began to sob. They were tears of frustration, tears of confusion. The Academy his father had run had been a cruel place to every child here but him. He had been the little prince in his palace, perched above it all, admiring the neatness of the cadet uniforms and the precision with which they jumped to attention on command. He hadn’t been spoiled, but he’d been happy enough.

He shouldn’t be feeling such an ardent, protective _love_ for this place. His mother’s fish had made them all laugh. She’d found it funny, to startle her husband. So ordinary, so harmless, and yet they’d donned their uniforms every day and set out to perform hideous experiments on children who were no more blameless than the son they cared for so dearly. His father had told cadets to kill each other, to prove their worth. Then he’d come home and beamed with pride when a young Armitage showed him a book he’d read all on his own.

It wasn’t _fair_.

Hux heard the door open behind him and Ben was there, embracing him, rocking him gently, whispering quiet words of reassurance. His breath was fluttering Hux’s hair faintly, and then a moment later Hux felt lips press against the crown of his head.

“Am I… a bad person?” Hux choked out, his face dripping with salt and snot. “I don’t care that this place is evil. I don’t _care_ that the Empire was evil!” His voice pitched up into a wail. “I want to live here again, with DeeDee and Father and… M-Mother…” He broke down again, choking on a half-formed scream of agony. His palms felt like they were burning, freed from the soft white gloves he always wore.

“No, no… oh, Hux…” Ben pulled him closer, his voice wavering like he was about to cry, too. “You’re not a bad person. I’ve seen how hard you work, throwing yourself against anything that might bring harm to the galaxy. I’ve never met anyone who cared as much as you.” He buried his face against Hux’s shoulder. “It’s amazing. You’re… amazing.”

“But…” Hux struggled to explain the monumental guilt that was pressing down on him. “All those ghosts and creepy feelings you were getting—that was _suffering._ Children, Ben! And so many of them locked away, where they’d never see their families again… You can still hear them begging for someone to help them. But no one did!”

“You do care. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t care.” Slowly, Ben carded his fingers through Hux’s hair. “You wouldn’t feel guilty if you didn’t care.”

“It’s so despicable of me, to be… to be missing my family. They were the ones responsible for all this! No one forced them to do it, they weren’t following orders!”

Slowly, Ben slipped a hand under Hux’s chin. “Look at me.”

For a moment, Hux resisted, and then he let his face turn towards Ben. “I know what you’re going to say,” he told the Jedi bitterly. “You’re going to say that you’re the same. That your grandfather did terrible things too, that you understand, but you _don’t_. It _isn’t_ the same.”

Ben hesitated, holding Hux’s face, and then, in one quick motion, he pulled his own tank top off and bunched it up. “Blow your nose on this,” he said. “Go on. I don’t mind.”

“Gross,” Hux protested feebly, but he did it anyway, wiping away the worst of the tear tracks, and they both huffed out tiny laughs.

Ben guided Hux to his feet and began to walk him back into the master bedroom. “I know it’s not the same. But you… I mean…” Once they were inside, he tossed his sleep shirt on top of his luggage in the corner, and urged Hux back onto the bed. “You miss your home because you love your family. It doesn’t matter what kind of people _they_ were. You love them…” He stroked Hux’s cheek slowly with a large, rough thumb. “Love isn’t evil.”

“It can make you do evil things,” Hux argued, but Ben cut him off.

“But you’re _not_ doing evil things. You’re just feeling. It’s okay.” He tugged Hux down onto the covers and wrapped himself around the thinner man. “Don’t worry so much. I’m here to protect you.”

With the tears shed, and the worst of the pain endured, it occurred to Hux how comfortingly strong Ben smelled, even though it was just ordinary sweat. His voice, soft and deep, layered with understanding, like a balm. His arms, firm and warm; his hands big and gentle as they rubbed up and down Hux’s side soothingly.

He couldn’t just slide back to sleep. Hux twisted so he was lying on his back, with Ben still pressed against him. “Ben…?” He peered through the dark, searching for the Jedi’s expression.

Tentatively, Ben rested a hand on Hux’s chest. “Is something wrong?”

Hux’s eyes flicked back and forth uncertainly. “When did we… become like this?”

“I don’t know,” Ben murmured. “I think… seeing parts of you that you normally keep hidden.”

It struck Hux that maybe they hadn’t _become_ anything. It was just as he said to his father; Ben had always been like this, from the day they’d met, always attentive, always interested. And then negotiations with the Resistance had ended, and Hux had left.

When they met again, both grown, Ben’s eyes had lit up with delight at the sight of Hux, and Hux had been able to cautiously approach the Jedi as a friend, a confidante. But also simply as an ally; he needed a Jedi to protect him, and Ben was the best of the lot.

Hux remembered how Ben had chattered about his family history when they first met. How his grandfather, Anakin Skywalker, had fallen in love with the then-Queen of Naboo, Padme Amidala, on sight. How she became a senator, how he’d protected her, married her in secret… Dear stars, no wonder he’d smiled so sheepishly when he’d told Hux he was assigned to be his bodyguard.

It wasn’t as if the story of Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala ended happily. Hux could afford to skirt some of those parallels. But Ben Solo was earnest and kind and charming. Often awkward. Full of hurt, sometimes, or anger. But Hux wasn’t afraid of whatever darkness Ben grappled with. He knew that darkness, had lived within it, had endured it.

He reached up to touch Ben’s cheek with his fingertips. Nothing said, but Ben had heard anyway, and he dropped down, his black hair falling against Hux’s jaw.

Just for a moment, they were close, and everything was warm, and Hux’s mouth tingled with the pressure of another pair of lips against his.

Then Hux shifted on the sheets, remembering whose sheets they were. What might have gone on, in these sheets, and between what people. It was possible that everything that led to _him_ , from a biological perspective, had started on this bed.

Ben might have come to the same mildly horrifying conclusion because he pulled away, hiding his face against the pillow. At any rate, the thought was like a dunking of ice water over Hux’s head, and he pulled the covers over himself. “I’ll… see you in the morning,” he grunted.

There was a soft, awkward, (rather puerile, to Hux’s mind) giggle from Ben’s side of the bed, and then the warmth returned, less of a dead weight on Hux’s chest and more of an envelopment. It might not have been perfect – perhaps too warm – but Hux knew Ben wouldn’t be deterred.

And that was acceptable. It was better than acceptable.

Outside, the rain continued to fall.


End file.
